


Crossroads

by angesradieux



Category: Vikings (TV)
Genre: Angst, Family Feels, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:41:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28387185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angesradieux/pseuds/angesradieux
Summary: Lagertha is going to leave--no one can stop her. Bjorn is faced with a choice and needs advice.
Comments: 27
Kudos: 26





	Crossroads

**Author's Note:**

> Author's Note: I wanted to write something fluffy, but apparently my brain just doesn't work that way and goes, "Okay. But how about some angst instead?" Anyway. I haven't written Bjorn very much, but I really hope I got his voice right. Feedback is always very much appreciated!
> 
> ~Anges

“Priest.”

Athelstan turns his head at the sound of the voice. His brow furrows. It’s a voice he knows, and yet it isn’t. The animosity Bjorn had once felt for him has faded, but the boy always spoke to him in that bold and commanding tone of his—he wanted so badly to be a man, and in the mind of a boy that meant shunning any show of vulnerability. The timbre is familiar to Athelstan, but the softness is not.

“What is it, Bjorn?”

The boy’s eyes flick around the hall, taking in all of the men around them. “Come outside with me.” A request, thinly veiled as a command to try to save some face.

“Of course.” He stands to follow Ragnar’s son out of the hall and risks placing a reassuring hand on his shoulder as they walk. The fact that Bjorn allows it to remain rather than immediately slapping it away is the second sign that something’s not right. Still, the Saxon knows better than to rush these things. Rather than pressing the matter, he walks in silence until they find a bench to sit on.

At first, they sit in silence, too. Bjorn’s lips purse and his eyes bore holes into the ground. He heaves a huge sigh, as if the entire weight of the world rests upon his young shoulders. Athelstan watches patiently, waiting for him to gather his courage. Bjorn will speak when he is ready. In that regard, he is very much like his father—they both remain silent until they feel the time is right, and neither will say a word beyond what they deem necessary.

Finally, he starts, “My mother is preparing to leave.”

“Yes,” Athelstan confirms. They’d both heard Lagertha and Ragnar fight and they had both seen her packing.

Slowly, Bjorn lifts his eyes to look at the priest. He sees the hesitation—the fear of being thought of as weak. Athelstan hopes that one day he will learn that stoicism isn’t the only form of strength. “I don’t want her to go. And I hate father for what he did to her. But I don’t want to lose him, either.”

Here, away from the men he wants so badly to impress, Bjorn allows himself to look to the priest for answers. But there is no easy answer. At least, not that Athelstan can see. The reality of it is that Ragnar and Lagertha are going to part ways and there isn’t anything anyone can do to stop it. “I have great respect for your mother,” he says. He closes his eyes and heaves a sigh of his own, searching for the right words. “But, I am your father’s slave and my place is with him. You, however, have a choice.” His lips curl in a sad and rueful smile. “I don’t envy you, Bjorn.”

Anger flashes across his face. “But I don’t _want_ to choose!” The petulance and defiance of youth color his tone. He is trying to mask the hurt, but instead only manages to amplify it.

“I know.” He wishes it weren’t necessary—for all his bluster, Bjorn is still a boy, and he is about to be forced to grow up entirely too quickly—but there is nothing Athelstan can do to fix this. “But you must.” What Bjorn needs now is honesty, not platitudes. Unpleasant truths delivered with compassion will help him far more than the prettiest of lies. “Do you remember what I said to your mother, that day when Siggy came to request a place in her household?”

Bjorn’s eyes narrow a little. “What does Siggy have to do with anything?”

“Nothing.” He keeps his tone light. “But I spoke of my own life, that day. I told her, when I took my vows, I accepted that my life was to be lived in the service of my God. And it was in that moment, when I accepted that I should forsake myself and instead focus on the needs of others, that I knew true happiness.”

Bjorn’s lip curls. “I’m not asking to be anyone’s _servant_ , Priest.”

For a moment, he looks as though he might leave. But Athelstan rests a gentle hand on his knee and he stays. “You will always be your own man, Bjorn.” He can’t help but smile fondly as, despite himself, the boy puffs up a little at being referred to as a man. “But, as your father says, a man’s job is to care for his family.”

“Right. And he’s done a great job of it,” the boy snorts.

Athelstan doesn’t try to defend Ragnar—he can’t, really. This destruction of his family has been wrought by his own arrogance. Athelstan is not blind to that fact. “You’ve a difficult choice to make. But perhaps it will be made less difficult if you think on not what it means for you, but what it means to the ones you love. Your mother and father both love you, Bjorn. But I think, perhaps, one has need of you more.”

“Who?”

He shakes his head. “It isn’t my place to say. It is your life, Bjorn. You must do what you alone think is right, or I fear you’ll live to regret it.” He sees the angry scowl on the boy’s face, but he isn’t dissuaded. “But I can try to help you reason, if you’ll allow me.”

The scowl doesn’t fade, but Bjorn gestures for him to go on.

“What are you to your father?”

“I’m his son.” He speaks as if Athelstan is the stupidest man he’s ever met.

The priest doesn’t bristle against it. He merely nods. “Yes. But you are also a son to Lagertha. In that regard, both will suffer for your absence.”

“But Father will have more sons with his whore.” The bitterness in Bjorn’s tone unbecoming of his youth.

“Perhaps. But that doesn’t mean he will not miss you,” Athelstan counters. Under different circumstances he might have objected to Bjorn’s coarse language, but for now he won’t begrudge the boy his anger. It’s not as though it’s unjustified.

“So I should stay.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Then I should go?”

“I didn’t say that, either.”

Bjorn huffs in aggravation.

“I already told you, I can’t tell you what to do. The choice must be yours.”

“I could just order you to tell me,” Born pouts.

That brings a chuckle from monk. “You could,” he agrees, shrugging his shoulders. “But I think I’d not obey.”

“You’re a terrible slave.”

“Yes. I suppose I am.”

Bjorn’s father would likely agree—a dutiful slave, Athelstan is sure, would look out for his master’s interests and convince his son to stay. But Athelstan also has a duty to Bjorn and besides, in that moment he doesn’t much care about being a good servant to his master.

“What will it mean,” Athelstan presses, “if you stay? For your mother and father.”

Bjorn’s eyes narrow as he thinks. “It means I’ll be with my father, and my uncle. And they can continue teaching me to fight like they do.” Athelstan nods, but doesn’t say anything, instead letting Bjorn try to parse things for himself. “But, then…” His lips purse. “If I stay, what becomes of my mother? Father has his new wife. And Rollo and Floki.” His lip curls a little bit as he adds, “And you, I suppose… But mother will be alone.”

He looks to Athelstan. “I have to go with her, don’t I?”

The sad smile on the priest’s face provides the confirmation he tries so hard to avoid giving. Athelstan had been beside Lagertha through both her miscarriage and Gyda’s death, and he could never wish the loss of yet another child upon her. Still, he asks, “Is that a choice you can live with?”

They both already know the answer. To Ragnar, Bjorn is a beloved son, yes. But to Lagertha, he has become everything.

“But then… Who will teach me to be a man?”

His voice is so plaintive. Athelstan itches to pull him into a hug, but he resists the urge. Even in a moment of vulnerability, there’s only so much the boy’s tremendous pride can take and Athelstan doesn’t want to risk scaring him off. “I’d not worry too much about that, Bjorn. From what I can see, you’re already well on your way to growing into a very fine man.” For the first time, he allows something bitter to creep into his own voice. “And in any case, I’m not sure your father has been setting a very good example of late.”

Bjorn simply scoffs rather than leaping to Ragnar’s defense.

“I will still miss him.”

“I know.” There isn’t anything he can say to negate the fact that Bjorn is facing a terrible loss. To try to brush it off would be an insult to his intelligence. Still, he says, “But have faith that this is farewell for now, but not forever. I believe that in time, all our paths will all cross again.”

It’s spoken as much for Athelstan’s own benefit as it is for Bjorn. He regrets that he will not be there to see him grow and mature into the man he’s meant to be. Ornery though he may be, Athelstan has grown very fond of Ragnar’s son, and of Lagertha as well.

“You can’t possibly know that.”

“Not for certain, no,” he admits. “But what is life without hope?” How else could one face a world that seems to be caving in entirely?

The priest stiffens a little in surprise as he feels the weight of Bjorn leaning against him. Cautiously, he wraps an arm around the boy’s shoulders. “Take care of your mother, Bjorn. And I’ll mind your father.”

That earns him a derisive snort.

Athelstan raises an eyebrow. “It’s true, I won’t be much use in a fight. But I can at least impress upon him the foolishness of throwing away what ought to be precious to him.”

“He’ll beat you.”

“He won’t.” Ragnar will not beat him for speaking out of turn. He may hit him when his temper gets the best of him, but Athelstan is more than willing to endure a slap here and there to keep Ragnar from sitting too comfortably on his pedestal.

Bjorn shakes his head. “No. If he finds I talked to you,” he clarifies. “He will see it as a betrayal and he will beat you.” The concern in his voice is both strange and touching from the child who once would have taken great glee in seeing the slave put in his place.

“Perhaps.” On that front, he can’t say Bjorn is wrong. Ragnar is very skilled at laying the blame for his misfortunes everywhere except at his own two feet, and if they’ve been overheard and word gets back to him, Athelstan will make an easy scapegoat. “I will be alright, and he will regret it.” He isn’t afraid.

“Priest?”

“Hm?”

“I’m glad I didn’t sacrifice you.”

Athelstan laughs. “I will miss you, Bjorn.” At one time, it would have been inconceivable. But they have both grown and changed, and they are no longer the cowering slave and the resentful child who antagonized him. “But I will rest easier knowing that you are with Lagertha.”

At Lindisfarne, he hadn’t had the benefit of knowing that his life with his brothers was coming to an end. This time, he can see the inevitability of what is to come, so he is mindful to fully appreciate this last—and, if truth be told only—heartfelt moment with Ragnar’s son, and he’s grateful that Bjorn doesn’t shove him away as his hold on the boy’s shoulders becomes just a little bit tighter.

Athelstan doesn’t remember his own parents—he’d been so young when they’d given him up to the service of the church. But, he had come to know two families in his life, and it is Ragnar’s hand that has taken them both. Slave though he may be, Athelstan will not allow his master to forget this.


End file.
